this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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The plan, mentioned in a new 76-page wish list by the Department of Defense’s Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, outlines advanced technologies desired for country’s most elite, clandestine military efforts. “Special Operations Forces (SOF) are interested in technologies that can generate convincing online personas for use on social media platforms, social networking sites, and other online content,” the entry reads.

The document specifies that JSOC wants the ability to create online user profiles that “appear to be a unique individual that is recognizable as human but does not exist in the real world,” with each featuring “multiple expressions” and “Government Identification quality photos.”

In addition to still images of faked people, the document notes that “the solution should include facial & background imagery, facial & background video, and audio layers,” and JSOC hopes to be able to generate “selfie video” from these fabricated humans. These videos will feature more than fake people: Each deepfake selfie will come with a matching faked background, “to create a virtual environment undetectable by social media algorithms.”

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[–] SuperiorOne@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 hours ago
[–] Luffy879@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 hours ago

Any government does anything shady Oh! I i would not have thought that any government is using my patriotism for their malicious things!

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I don't get it. They're not already?

[–] coolusername@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

it's the pentagon itself, not the CIA or state department. 100% the CIA and state department has been doing it for a long time already

[–] Wolfram@lemmy.world 9 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Jesus, even before I read the article it read like the U.S wants to emulate disinformation campaigns others are using. The irony of three letter agencies condemning AI campaigns while the Pentagon is going "We want that", is insane but its to be expected I guess.

[–] beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

…Do you think the US government has never done disinformation campaigns before?

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 hours ago

no, but they pretend otherwise, so them publicly salivating for it is a new level of embarrassing.

[–] Wolfram@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

No. I'm not clueless or surprised. Just disappointed that we're stooping to using AI bots to sow discord like Russia is doing.

[–] Lennny@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Office of Strategic Influence says sup

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I assume this is the same reason why they want to ban TikTok but not Facebook - it's not so much that they object to the data harvesting, they just object to non-American data harvesting that they can't readily influence.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 7 points 15 hours ago

.world will double in users again

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

So they can save money by firing their army of nafo meat puppets?

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 4 points 15 hours ago

I mean they did had IRL meeting probably because even they didn't believed they are real people lol.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 70 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Can we have a side internet, for us normal people?

[–] drwho@beehaw.org 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 2 points 8 hours ago
[–] off_brand_@beehaw.org 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I think the saving grace of the Internet is in the small holes that arent populated enough for these big actors to care about. If you're influencing a nation, you probably aren't going to inject your AI slop into a tiny proboards or like the forum on Gaia Online.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

except gaia is one of the largest forums on earth.

they have more subscribers than Apple TV+

[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

That exists it's called tildeverse and gemini

[–] jcg@halubilo.social 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Have you got a more specific search term for Gemini? Unfortunately the word has been taken by Google

[–] disguised_doge@kbin.earth 5 points 20 hours ago

Unfortunately, if everybody goes there the bots will follow.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What's the pros and cons of those?

[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Both go back to 90s tech so you lose a lot of functionality. Gemini is mainly text based with links to files. So think pre web text pages at University's but it's cool to read people's pages without all the distractions of images and video. I have read some cool stories on there. Got an awesome cookie recipe as well from a person in Denmark.

[–] Sundial@lemm.ee 33 points 1 day ago

So they want to automate the use of troll-farms?

[–] Aradina@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Weird how they're doing the thing they accuse others of doing. Almost like it's a confession.

[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago

Projection is a major problem

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Dude I can't even pass a catchpa these day. I still don't know if a e-bike is a scooter, a bike, or a moped.

[–] essell@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

Are you jealous of the other bots who can?

[–] Serialchemist@ttrpg.network 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Captcha and I can never agree on what is and isn’t a bus.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] django@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 day ago (3 children)

They keep showing me strange street features from distant countries and ask me shit like "mark all the crosswalks". And i look at it and think "no idea, what this is, no crosswalk i have ever seen looked like this, so i guess it it is something different".

And then i have to do the next captcha. Sometimes i am caught in captcha hell, where i have to solve captchas until i give up and close the browser.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There is a short story in here about someone who can't pass a captcha, loses their identity, and has to move on to becoming a fisherman in Norway.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago

Fisherman in Norway is probably an upgrade for some people lol

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[–] SomeGuy69@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Dead internet, it will be drowned in bots.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 day ago
[–] zante@lemmy.wtf 20 points 1 day ago

Bro I’ve about a dozen I can sell you right now

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The listing notes that special operations troops “will use this capability to gather information from public online forums,” with no further explanation of how these artificial internet users will be used.

Any chance that's the real reason and not just a flimsy excuse? What kind of information would you even need a fake identity to gather from a public forum?

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago

I guess there are probably a lot of people trading that stuff dumb enough to be networking on facebook and instagram with their real identities

[–] Korkki@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

As if any institution, org or group that has an agenda to push doesn't have battalions of bots guiding the discussion of forums to whichever way they want and not just fake followers and likes. As if people would need permission or would ask for it even if they had to. You just cant have any real sense of the public opinion on the internet, if there ever was such a time.

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